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Application of gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS) in conjunction with multivariate classification for the diagnosis of gastrointestinal diseases

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Abstract

Gastrointestinal diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis are a growing concern in the developed world. Current techniques for diagnosis are often costly, time consuming, inefficient, of great discomfort to the patient, and offer poor sensitivities and specificities. This paper describes the development and evaluation of a new methodology for the non-invasive diagnosis of such diseases using a combination of gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and chemometrics. Several potential sample matrices were tested: blood, breath, faeces and urine. Faecal samples provided the only statistically significant results, providing discrimination between CD and healthy controls with an overall classification accuracy of 85 % (78 % specificity; 93 % sensitivity). Differentiating CD from other diseases proved more challenging, with overall classification accuracy dropping to 79 % (83 % specificity; 68 % sensitivity). This diagnostic performance compares well with the gold standard technique of colonoscopy, suggesting that GC–MS may have potential as a non-invasive screening tool.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the Wellcome Trust for funding the work (Project 080238/Z/06/Z).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering, Building 63, Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, UK

    Michael Cauchi

  2. School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, UK

    Dawn P. Fowler & Christopher Walton

  3. The Department of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences, Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK

    Claire Turner

  4. School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

    Wenjing Jia, Rebekah N. Whitehead, Lesley Griffiths, Rosemary H. Waring, David B. Ramsden & Jeffrey A. Cole

  5. Gastroenterology Research Unit, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Box 262, Cambridge, CB2 0QQ, UK

    Claire Dawson & John O. Hunter

  6. School of Electronic, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

    Hao Bai

  7. School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, UK

    Conrad Bessant

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  1. Michael Cauchi
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  2. Dawn P. Fowler
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  3. Christopher Walton
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  4. Claire Turner
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  9. Hao Bai
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  14. Conrad Bessant
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Correspondence to Michael Cauchi.

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Cauchi, M., Fowler, D.P., Walton, C. et al. Application of gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS) in conjunction with multivariate classification for the diagnosis of gastrointestinal diseases. Metabolomics 10, 1113–1120 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-014-0650-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-014-0650-1

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